Regular Article

Noninvasive transcranial focused ultrasonic-magnetic stimulation for modulating brain oscillatory activity

¹ Institute of Electrical Engineering, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao 066004, P.R. China
² State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, P.R. China
³ Center for Collaboration and Innovation in Brain and Learning Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, P.R. China

^a e-mail: xiaoli@bnu.edu.cn

Received: 30 September 2015
Revised: 18 November 2015
Accepted: 5 January 2016
Published online: 22 February 2016

Abstract

A novel technique, transcranial focused ultrasonic-magnetic stimulation (tFUMS), has been developed for noninvasive brain modulation in vivo. tFUMS has a higher spatial resolution (<2 mm) and a higher penetration depth than other noninvasive neuromodulation methods. The in vivo animal experimental results show that tFUMS can not only increase the power of local field potentials and the firing rate of the neurons, but also enhance the effect of transcranial focused ultrasound stimulation on the neuromodulation. The results demonstrate that tFUMS can modulate brain oscillatory activities by stimulating brain tissues.